November 29, 2007

Mitchell students will advance to the National Moot Court Competition

For the first time in more than two decades, Mitchell students will advance to the National Moot Court Competition, one of the oldest and largest law school moot court competitions.

Mitchell’s petitioner’s team of Liane Budge, Megan Bjerke, and Tara Duginske won the New York Bar Association Region 8 competition. They will now advance to compete against the first and second place teams from other regions around the country in New York in January.

To win the competition, they beat Mitchell’s respondent’s team in the quarterfinals, Drake in the semi-finals, and the University of Minnesota in the finals.

In addition, petitioner’s team wrote the best overall brief in the competition.  Megan Bjerke was judged to be the best advocate overall in the final round.

Congratulations to individuals Tara Duginske who ranked 7th in oral advocates in the preliminary rounds and Megan Bjerke who ranked 15th as well as the respondent’s team of Rachel Bendtsen, Dan Bernhard, and Jeanette Wong who made it to the quarterfinals.  Respondent Dan Bernhard placed 5th overall in oral advocates in the preliminary rounds.

Mitchell also extends a special thanks and congratulations to the teams’ coaches, Dionne Benson ’00 and Erika Burkhart Booth ’05. The national competition is sponsored by the Association of the Bar of New York City and the American College of Trial Lawyers.